Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. -Anne Lamott
If you want to be a writer you must write. Something, anything. Start your short story with something as cliche as once upon a time or start your mystery novel with it was a dark and stormy night but you must start.
Most of us are hesitant to begin writing due to fear. We worry that our writing will be bad. Trust me, it will be. But that’s okay because when it comes to writing, bad is better than nothing.
First efforts are messy and painful but you cannot not improve unwritten words, so get them down. Slap them on the page in great disorganized heaps. Let the your word usage be obese, let your sentences run longer than a day time soap opera, let your grammar be slovenly, just get the words down. Then, once they are written, the real work begins.
I liken my writing process to sculpting, not that I’ve ever sculpted a thing in my life but I have watched YouTube videos and stayed at a Holiday Inn Express (sorry, couldn’t help myself) and it’s pretty accurate if I do say so myself. I mound the words upon the page in a misshapen blob and then I get to work trimming and modeling. This is where the magic of writing comes in, where the story takes shape and takes off. This is where your writing gets good. But . . . you can’t get to this point until you have some words written down, even ‘bad’ words.
You don’t believe that sometimes to get good, it’s okay to be bad? Google search ‘Is it okay to write bad’ and you’ll come up with more hits than a crack head on payday. I was going to post some links here, but I was quickly overwhelmed. Just search it, trust me you’ll feel better about your ‘bad writing’ in no time.
So instead of that, I’m going to tell you three things I do to get writing when I’m convinced I suck and that the world will laugh at me:
I take a class. It holds me accountable, gives me smaller goals than sitting down to write a whole damn book and I have support in the form of a teacher and classmates. I highly recommend Writeriffic: Creativity Training for Writers taught by Eva Shaw who is also a full time author. It’s an online course I took through the local community college, since it’s online it is offered through several venues.
I volunteer to read someone’s work in my critique group even if I don’t have something of mine for them to read. This spurs me on in so many ways. One, I’m continually impressed by how brave people are, to bandy about their rough drafts so easily, and that makes me want to be brave. Two, I get jealous! I’ll read a great line and think ‘why didn’t I think of that?’, this gets me to the computer like nothing else. Three, by giving others ideas on how to improve their stories I give myself ideas and am reminded that if I can help others improve their writing, surely I can improve my own.
Last one, I promise. If I have time to write but don’t know what to write or where to start, I’ll pick an object near me and start writing about it. It could an item on my desk or something I see outside or the suspicious freckle on my arm, it doesn’t matter. I’ll describe what it is, what it looks like, where it came from (or make up where it came from), why I have it – if it’s something that belongs to me, etc. It’s amazing the thoughts and ideas that stem from this little exercise. Basically, you’re clearing out the dried up cork of lotion from the nozzle so you can get to the fresh stuff. And (I am neither encouraging nor endorsing here, simply being real like promised) a cold glass of wine or a beer often helps me along with this process . . . just saying.
Now get to it writers, I want to hear all about your bad writing and I’ll tell you all about mine. I have a cold glass of wine waiting and an empty page aching for once upon a time.